What are these for? If anything.

Desktop charger/cradle. These contacts will match up with the contacts on the desktop cradle for charging the battery.

So the cradles have finally moved away from the "reach around" method of a cradle with the miniusb plug still having to be inserted?

ahhhh no need for a reach around....lol

The vast majority of us still plug our mini-USB cable in out device every night. For the few, who prefer, RIM sells this cradle so you can just drop your device into it for charging. I think it also does an extra battery and BT headset at the same time.

For all the info look here:
BlackBerry Accessories Store - Product Detail

Not my cup of tea!